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Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

#261

Post by caskance »

saiya-jin wrote: post #258
caskance wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that companies are able to create loopholes via lobbying is the problem. When you accept corrupt government as an unchangeable fact of nature, you've already conceded defeat.

or... you might become a realist, and maybe try to come up with solutions applicable in real world, on real people and real situations. I'm not claiming I know what the solutions are. But I am damn sure theoretical solutions for theoretical situations tend to fail spectacularly in reality, no matter what topic they are about.

You could support Lawrence Lessig's presidential campaign.

Re: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

#262

Post by krotton »

afarrell wrote: post #253
krotton wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in hypothetical laissez-faire capitalism taxes would not be needed to provide infrastructure - Uber would just have to pay its fees for driving on private roads (etc.). This would drive prices up, but fairly divide the costs between the roads' users. Although I must admit I have no idea how things could look with purely digital companies like Facebook. I can think of local ISP-s charging the company for allowin…

But you still need taxes to pay for courts, police, armies, etc. Unless you are arguing the An-Cap thesis that these functions can be conducted by private entities. If you are, then congratulations: we're already living under your preferred system! It is just that for most territory, one company has seized monopolistic control of the territory, has called itself "the government", and no other companies have been form…

I'm not an anarcho-capitalist, I'm just conducting a mental experiment to see how far state minimalism can go. I'm quite convinced we can (and probably should) limit the competences of current behemoth governments - what I don't know (and am therefore trying to discuss) is to what extent.

Re: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

#263

Post by te_chris »

laichzeit0 wrote: post #259

Trump's solution? Cut the U.S. corporate tax rate to 15% from the current top rate of 35%. This would make corporate inversion unnecessary. I think he also had the idea of capping tax at 10% for companies wanting to bring their money back. At some point you have to ask yourself "why are companies doing this?" and fix the root cause.

Creating a race to the bottom is the opposite of fixing the root cause. The US already has a way to deal with this as it's the system used internally between states: levy taxes where sales happen.

Re: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

#265

Post by tobltobs »

caskance wrote: post #260
tobltobs wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not want to raise taxes. I just want that everybody pays his taxes, because than we could lower taxes.

I haven't seen anyone claim that Facebook is failing to pay all the tax they are legally obligated to pay. Did you mean something else by "everybody pays his taxes?"

There are currently investigations in the EU if FB did fullfil the requirements to use the tax loopholes they are using. If not, FB did not pay the taxes they are obligated to pay.

Re: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

#266

Post by throwaway2048 »

cpursley wrote: post #203

Corporations don't pay tax even when they do. The tax is a cost passed on to the end consumer. I'd rather see a combination of a progressive consumption tax (necessities < luxuries) combined with trade tariffs that's appropriate for the country being traded with. This would circumvent the shell company trick.

The idea that all taxes are just costs passed onto the consumer is patently abusrd, if they could easily raise prices to that level and have people pay, they already would have. It effects profit margins much more than it does the prices they set.

Re: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

#267

Post by username223 »

smt88 wrote: post #74
jkahn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what I mean. I'm talking about what the tax money collected gets spent on by government - roads, healthcare, infrastructure, aged pensions. If industry X was paying $100mm tax, and industry Y disrupts and replaces that, while paying only $20mm tax, the government needs to find $80 million to replace that tax shortfall. Nothing to do with taxi related services...

And what I was saying is that industry Y might save the government money as well. The net effect might be that the government has more money. To continue using Uber as an example, not only do they potentially decrease the costs of operating the government (see my reasoning above), they're also still paying local employees. Those employees will spend their Uber revenue and pay taxes, just as taxi drivers would. Furthe…

> they're also still paying local employees. Those employees will spend their Uber revenue and pay taxes, just as taxi drivers would.

This is drifting off-topic, but it's worth noting that Uber's short-term plan is to somewhat reduce the wages of people who drive taxis (or "share rides," as they call it), and greatly reduce the tax cities collect on that activity. Their long-term plan is robot cars with no paid drivers.

Re: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

#268

Post by Marazan »

refurb wrote: post #241
1stop wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... Is this like a "Why do people get mad you have to sit at the back of the bus, it is the law after all?" kind of argument?

I take it you're equating tax optimization with denying someone their civil rights?

No, what they are doing is pointing out that just because something is legal does not make it moral.

Re: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

#269

Post by DanBC »

squiggy22 wrote: post #28
DanBC wrote: post #4

No-one expects companies to pay the full whack of tax. But Facebook is taking the piss. They need to be a bit careful, because they risk causing much tighter tax regulation in EU. Citizens don't see this behaviour and think "well done, got one over on the government". Most citizens are infuriated by this scumbag behaviour. And before anyone says "they're just obeying the law" -- we don't know that. They're clearly no…

'some tax avoidance schemes haven't been tested in courts yet' Probably because the law isn't either fit for purpose, or clear enough for someone to litigate. As far as I'm concerned, if they (are obeying the law) and getting away with it, then articles like these only expose that the government are the incompetent ones.

> Probably because the law isn't either fit for purpose, or clear enough for someone to litigate.

No UK tax authorities use courts as a measure of last resort. They persuade companies to pay unpaid taxes. See, eg, Vodafone who came to a deal. These bills were billions of pounds.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/9330102/HMRC-cl...

Although see also this:

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2011/dec/06/hmrc-tax-deal-v...

etc.

It's very expensive to sue these massive companies. It's probably a good thing that deals are made to reclaim some of the tax.

Re: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014

#270

Post by ZenoArrow »

kybernetyk wrote: post #180
ZenoArrow wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that because you believe you pay too much tax? Wouldn't it be better if the loopholes were fixed but there was a reduction in tax charged too? Tax evasion ends up pushing up taxes for everyone else, it's not your government that you're short changing, it's your family, it's your friends, it's your neighbours. This may sound harsh, but it's just the reality of the situation. I hope you will give it a second thought…

>Is that because you believe you pay too much tax? If I pay more than I'm required to by law then I pay too much by definition. >Wouldn't it be better if the loopholes were fixed but there was a reduction in tax charged too? Of course this would be better and ideal. But it's a curious things with politicians. New taxes come easily. But they seldom leave voluntarily. We're still having an extra tax on sparkling wine h…

> "Yes, but I'm not talking about evasion. Evasion would be illegally saying "I earned nothing" and hiding the money. Tax optimizaton by out-smarting the system is legal though."

There's a difference between the spirit of the law and the implementation of the law. If tax laws were perfectly implemented then the loopholes would not exist, but that doesn't necessarily make the intention behind the laws unclear.

You've decided to follow the legal options available to you rather than honouring the intended use of the laws. You can call it 'tax optimisation' if you want, but it's just tax evasion under a different name. I can understand why it's tempting, I've probably done similar acts before on a smaller scale (things like avoiding customs duty on some posted items), not something I'm proud of.

> "We're still having an extra tax on sparkling wine here in Germany. It was introduced in 1901 to finance the German Imperial Navy to rival the British Empire [1] ..."

If you have such laws, then efforts should be made to remove them. Is it harder to remove them than using tax loopholes? Yes, but it's still the right thing to do. Don't German citizens have the right to start a citizens initiative?

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